Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Another innocent child is lured to the orange fish-shaped cracker of death

We were at Duane Reade yesterday and wouldn’t you know…The Goldfish (evil cousin to the much lauded and equally mischievous Organic Cheddar Bunny) were just at eye level to the girls as we rolled down the aisle in the double stroller.

Let's all close our eyes now and collectively place the ju-ju curse on all Duane Reade stock boys for positioning these bags of poison right at stroller eye level. Thank you.

This Goldfish sighting was very unfortunate because Lucy and Edie immediately freaked out and lunged towards the rows of colorful Goldfish packaging as if Santa were giving out free Princess dolls in aisle 7. Then, they broke into uncontrollable arm spasms and flailed about as if in some kind of Goldfish-induced epileptic seizure.

So long story short - I caved.

I had a bunch of errands to do and I calculated how long I could keep them in the stroller, whizzing them through the streets of Harlem, going shop to shop in the drizzling rain, before they would stage a mutiny and undo buckles and belts and hurl themselves out onto the sidewalk and pound the pavement with their angry little fists and hurl their shoes at innocent passer-bys.

A couple bags of Goldfish crackers might just buy me 20 minutes of what I like to call "Goldfish Zen Calm". But it wasn’t an easy decision.

I mean we don’t have Goldfish, Cheddar Bunnies or any other nutritionally-vacant, belly-fillers lying around the house. But I was torn - there was that 20 minutes of unfettered stroller contentment looming on my horizon and fantasies of "Goldfish Zen Calm" and the promise of goals accomplished and it was all a powerful urge calling out to me and I felt like my head was spinning and the kids were seizing and the store was whirling around me and I think I may have blacked out for few seconds because when I opened my eyes and the dizziness subsided, each of the kids was contentedly opening their very own bag of Goldfish.

Really, I barely remember any of it.

My first reaction was panic. What if someone saw me? Would I fess up and tell David, who would surely look at me as if I were some stranger with orange crumbs on my lips? Or would I just discreetly reach down and wipe the fish dust - and in essence, the traces of my crime - off my kids faces and forget to tell him it ever happened? Was this kind of Goldfish thing covered in our marriage vows?

And what about my readers? What would my readers say if they found me giving my kids something that wasn’t a cage-free, bird-friendly, pastured, shade-grown, free-range, sustainable, grass-fed organic snack? It's like I went off the official play book or something.

They might think I've been breaking into the scotch lately. A rumor I strongly deny.

So, then the paranoia kicked in and I wondered if any of my readers could be watching me from the tampon aisle? No really, the thought actually crossed my mind. I was like Pee Wee Herman with his pants down around his ankles in the dirty sex theater.

God, I'm a freak.

I looked around. The coast looked clear. I paid quickly in cash, so as to not leave a paper trail of my indiscretions (Elliott Spitzer should take lessons from me - pay CASH when you hire a hooker next time.)

I got my errands done and the kids ate far less than I anticipated since both bags fell out (or were pushed) onto the sidewalk within a few yards of one another, right there in front of New York Sports Club and about ¾ of each bag tumbled out onto the wet sidewalk in these two big orange heaps, one of which I rolled through before I even noticed and so, not only was there a Goldfish carnage in two bright neon orange clumps in front of store - where people who don’t have kids and have time to work out, were gawking at me and wondering why I couldn’t just conjure up a broom and clean up after myself - but the orange stuck to my stroller wheels and I distributed a trail of orange Goldfish dust all the way down the block and onto the street.

I tried to act like it wasn’t me but you know, we were pretty unmistakable. So, I did the only thing I could do - I held my head high and pretended nothing was wrong. It’s amazing what you can block out by just pretending stuff doesn’t exist. It didn’t even bother me that the kids kept looking back and pointing to the big orange piles and screaming, “THERE’S OUR FISH, MOMMY!” over and over.

I just kept walking. Kept my head held high. La dee da dee da…

What did I learn? Even the rain couldn’t wash away whatever orange-colored poison they put in these goldfish from hell. But I got my errands done. I got my 20 minutes. I experienced the "Goldfish Zen Calm". The children seem to be doing just fine.

Reminder to self: Stay the hell out of aisle 7.

Xxxooo YM

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A couple of noteworthy things:

A book I recently ghostwrote - but can’t tell you the name of for fear the guy who’s name is on the cover will use it to beat me senseless - is out in stores and is doing quite well. I would tell you to run out and buy it immediately, but that might be hard since you won’t know which one it is. Maybe you should just go out and buy a book today. If you like it, I wrote that one.

Over the weekend, we left the children at home – not alone, thank you, with their Godmother - and had a lovely dinner at Chef Michael Lomonaco’s “Porterhouse” in the TimeWarnerBuilding. I had the most amazing marrow bones and now I must make them at home because they are pure fat, but soooo much better than eating a whole cake or something equally decadent. And they are super high in protein and the kids can scoop out the fat with little tiny baby forks which will be HUGE here at Casa Yummy Mummy and so, I’ll be posting about that soon. I think this stuff is definately kid food. And if I’m going to eat pure fat, so are you. So start working that treadmill, baby.

David is still in London. The girls are asking for him all the time. But the CSFB (The Competent But Sexy Finnish Babysitter) is back from Miami, all tanned and blond and satiated by drink and strange libidinous men on the beach. Thank God. My life is nearly normal again.

I now have a Facebook page, although there’s not much on there yet since I am a Facebook virgin and figuring out how to do all the stuff there is a little like getting a degree in Nuclear Physics. So, if you know about Face book come on over! You can find me at Kim Foster and I started a group called The Yummy Mummy Cooks Gourmet, but now that I have a group I have to figure out exactly what that means and what I have to do with my group. Field trips? Homework? Free drinks? Panty raids? What? If you guys have any idea about this stuff, I’d love to hear them…

Under the category of things I shouldn’t write about but will - we want to get pregnant this year and in order to do that, we need to wean the little period-stopper. So prepare for many excruciating posts describing us tearing the nipple out of Edie’s mouth and preventing her from having the one thing in the world she truly loves.

Yes, I'm winning the progeny game now, but I'm probably old enough to be your mother - albeit your young-looking, hip, sexy mother - so I have a pretty short window of opportunity, but I'm thrilled to hear you guys are going to try to get pregnant. What does the Cheesemonger say about all this?

And it doesn't matter how you take it out, just get the IUD out as soon as you are ready. Your kids will light up your life. All the chaos, the bad hair, the all-to-few showers, the whole circus is worth it. Just do it. Come to the other side...whenever you're ready.

On the bright side, they were not the most evil goldfish of all, the dreaded Rainbow Goldfish:http://izzyeats.blogspot.com/2007/09/school-snack-first-episode.html

To avoid future snack related frenzies, ALWAYS tote around better snacks! I have to carry at least three different things around and I will insist that organic bunnies (though a nutritional bust) are far better..compare ingredients!One can develop an addiction to the organic bunnies too I am afraid!

Note to Cheesemonger's Wife: 31 is quite a spring chicken..your eggs can still be marketed!!

i finally got the cheesemonger to talk about babies. not meaning to throw another wrench into the plans, I've just been accepted into nurse practitioner school and being preggers and going to clinical is not looking to good to me...so we've decided to wait until I'm in my last semester of grad school and then start the arduous task of making a baby. i think we'll just practice until then.

Shannon and Veronica - Okay, I can tell the weaning is going to be a big thing around here...but how do I make that work in a food blog? any ideas?

Anonymous - I'm glad I'm making you think about babies because they are delightful but really, if you saw me walking down the street, hair unkempt, stained clothes, frantic look, child hanging off one boob, the other screaming and throwing her shoes, you might reconsider.

Aw hell, it's still pretty great. Come over to the dark side with us, Anonymous!

Cheesemonger's Wife - 31 is still young. Do your degree. Make love to your husband whenever the urge strikes. Sleep in in the mornings. Spend three hours cooking together in the kitchen. There's plenty of time for babies. It'll happen soon enough.

And when it does, I'll be waiting...

Izzy's Mama - I know! I know! I should bring my own snacks, but really, we were going out for 20 minutes. It would take me more time to prepare and store the snacks for the trip!

Just getting the two of them to sleep undisturbed for like 15 minutes is a challenge and then, we're probably exhausted anyway and relieved that we have an excuse to just go to sleep and then, when it works it's like we are on some kind of clock where we have to finish the whole thing before someone interrupts and there's that whole ovulation thing which requires tracking the days and actually making "appointments" at certain times. Yeesh!

Okay, I admit it. I'm kind of looking forward to buying 20 pregnancy tests again and getting excited about the possibilities.

First of all, what's wrong with goldfish? Did I miss something? Second of all, I want to know what book you wrote. And are you sure you don't want my kids for a couple days? Sometimes they aren't so cute as teenagers!

Except for loathesome crunchy Cheetos [what ARE they, anyway? They look like the dessicated metatarsals of Mario Batali], the ex-Kindergarten teacher in me finds it difficult to resist orange foods: orange slices, Goldfish crackers--but even I draw the line at those plasticine circus peanuts. The mother of toddlers in me finds them indispensable for the blissful shopping/mind-control powers you've outlined. If there's maternal indemnity in these little fishies, I am sunk.

I will just ignore the preggers talk and focus on the evil fish talk...

Since the evil fish have been around, no child has died, nor a parent arrested for consuming the flat, cardboard-y, utterly addicting and ridiculous cracker. Don't even start with the flavor blasted variety- there is something like crack cocaine in those; they make my 14 year old nutso for them. In the big picture, I might question a Big Mac, but not the evil fish. You're fine, Kim.

I will attempt to find you on Facebook too...look up Kate Selner and give me a poke why don't you? I love Scrabulous too but my current playing partner is kickin' my rear end from here to Tanzania on every game. I need someone else to play with!!!!

About The Yummy Mummy

I'm Kim. I'm a writer, humorist, cook, co-founder of Charcutepalooza, wife to David, an Australian, rock climbing entertainment producer, and mom to Lucy, 6 and Edie, 4. There's a lot going on in our kitchen. Occasionally someone gets hit in the head with a fork. And there's a lot of naked cooking.